1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the management of international and global organizations. More particularly, the present invention relates to the generation of real time sales forecasts for large organizations, such as multi-national corporations.
2. Description of the Related Art
Effective management of large business entities or complex projects requires that the decision-makers be provided with accurate and timely information. Inaccurate and out of date information cannot model the historical or present behavior of the entity with any degree of certainty, nor can such data provide a reliable basis for projections of future performance. Such imperfect information naturally skews the decision making process, and the company""s behavior in the marketplace may not be as nimble as it might otherwise have been with more accurate and timely information.
Sales forecasting is an example where the need for timely information is highest. Inaccurate or out of date sales forecasting information provides the decision maker, such as the CEO of a large multinational company, with a skewed view of the direction in which his or her company is proceeding. In turn, such out of date and inaccurate sales forecasting information may impair the decision maker""s ability to implement anticipatory corrective measures, or to accurately characterize the anticipated performance of the company when communicating with industry analysts, for example.
Typically, regional sales forecasting information is gathered from salespersons within a sales force of a large corporation and inputted on a spreadsheet computer program. These spreadsheets may then be manually and painstakingly merged together to create regional sales forecasts, territorial sales forecasts and national sales forecasts. These national Sales forecasts are typically expressed in as many national currencies as the number of countries in which the company maintains a sales force. Such national forecasts are typically prepared by the financial department of the company""s national headquarters. The national sales forecasts, in turn, must be converted into a preferred currency (typically the currency of the country in which the company world headquarters is located) and individually merged by the financial department of the company""s world headquarters to form a global sales forecast for the company.
It can be appreciated, however, that this process of gathering sales information, inputting the sales information into spreadsheets, converting the currencies and merging the spreadsheets is a burdensome, slow and costly process. Indeed, by the time the global sales forecast reaches the CEO or other high-level decision makers, it may not accurately reflect current pipeline sales information or recent deals and is thus out of date. Such out of date sales forecast further contributes to the inertia of large organizations, and renders them less responsive to today""s increasingly fluid and dynamic marketplace as they might otherwise be if they were to be provided with timely forecasting abilities.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to provide large organizations with methods and systems to generate real time sales forecasts upon demand. In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide methods and systems to provide multi-national corporations with methods and systems to securely generate real time global sales forecasts at any level of the sales force hierarchy, across product lines, sales teams or any other subset, combination or permutation thereof.
An object of the present invention, therefore, is to provide methods and systems for generating real time sales forecasts upon demand. Another object of the present invention is to provide methods and systems to provide multi-national corporations with methods and systems to securely generate real time global sales forecasts at any level of the sales force hierarchy. In accordance with the above-described objects and those that will be mentioned and will become apparent below, a computer-implemented method of generating a real time global sales forecast for a multi-national company, according to an embodiment of the present invention, includes steps of defining an hierarchical structure for a sales force of the company; defining a place within the hierarchical structure for each member of the sales force; accepting original pipeline sales information remotely entered by members of the sales force over a computer network; storing the original pipeline sales information in a database, the stored original pipeline sales information being tagged to that member of the sales force having entered the original pipeline sales information; selectively modifying pipeline sales information included in the stored original pipeline sales information to generate forecast sales information while maintaining the stored original pipeline sales information unchanged; storing the forecast sales information in the database and tagging the stored forecast sales information to that member of the sales force having modified the pipeline sales information; and selectively aggregating the stored sales forecast information according to a hierarchy indicated by the hierarchical structure to generate, upon request, a real time sales forecast over a selected time period.
The hierarchical structure may be a global sales hierarchical structure that includes a national hierarchical sales structure for each country where the company maintains a sales force. The original pipeline sales information may be accepted in a plurality of national currencies and the selective aggregation step may include the steps of selecting at least one currency of the plurality of currencies in which the real time sales forecast is to be generated, and converting the aggregated stored forecast information to the selected at least one currency. The original pipeline sales information may be accepted in a plurality of national currencies and the aggregating step may include the step of selectively aggregating the stored sales forecast information of each national hierarchical sales structure in at least one of the plurality of national currencies; converting a currency of each aggregated stored sales forecast information into the at least one of the plurality of national currencies, and aggregating each of the currency-converted and aggregated stored sales forecast information to generate the real time global sales forecast.
The pipeline sales information-storing steps may include steps of transmitting the pipeline sales information to the database over the computer network. The network may include the Internet. Each member of the sales force of the company may be assigned a permission level, the assigned permission level determining which stored sales forecast information are aggregated in the real time sales forecast. A real time sales forecast may be generated by aggregating only stored sales forecast information and/or stored pipeline sales information of those members of the sales force having a lower permission level than a member of the sales force having requested the real time sales forecast. A step of granting a global permission level may be carried out, the global permission level enabling that member of the sales force to whom it is granted to generate a real time sales forecast including all stored sales forecast information and/or all stored pipeline sales information. The sales force may include C-level executives of the company, irrespective of whether the C-level executives have sales responsibilities. A step of granting a special permission level may be granted, the special permission level enabling a person to whom it is granted to generate a real time sales forecast of selected stored sales forecast information and/or selected pipeline sales information.
The present invention is also a computer-implemented method of generating a real time aggregate sales forecast for a multi-national company, comprising the steps of defining a hierarchical structure representative of an organization of an entire sales force of the multi-national company; providing a remotely accessible Internet application, the Internet application being configured to allow each member of the sales force to remotely input pipeline and/or forecast sales information via an Internet browser and to store the at least one of inputted sales and forecast information in a single database; selectively allowing the pipeline and/or sales information to be rolled up the hierarchical structure upon request and summed to generate the aggregate sales forecast over a selected time period.
The rolling up step may be carried out to a highest level in the hierarchical structure and the aggregate sales forecast may be a global sales forecast for the multi-national company. The selectively allowing step may include steps of assigning a permission level to each salesperson within the sales force according to a position of each member of the sales force within the hierarchical structure and the assigned permission level may determine what pipeline and/or sales forecast information may be included in the aggregated sales forecast. At least the Chief Operating Officer (CEO) of the multi-national company may be assigned a highest permission level. The selectively allowing step may further include steps of assigning a special permission level to a person, the special permission level being uncorrelated to a position of the person within the hierarchical structure.
According to a still further embodiment thereof, the present invention is a computer system adapted to generate of a global sales forecast for a multi-national company, comprising a database; a plurality computers, each of the computers being adapted to access the database over the Internet; a global sales forecasting application, the application being accessible from a secure Web site by the plurality of computers, the forecasting application being adapted to accept original pipeline sales information, to store the accepted pipeline sales information in the database and to allow selective access thereto by the plurality of computers depending upon an assigned permission level.
The forecasting application may be adapted to express the original pipeline sales information into one or more selected currencies. The forecasting application may be adapted to selectively aggregate stored pipeline sales information according to a hierarchy of a sales force of the company and depending upon the assigned permission level of a person making the request. The forecasting application may be adapted to allow selected members of the sale force to selectively modify pipeline sales information included in the original pipeline sales information to create forecast sales information over a specified period of time. The stored original pipeline information is preferably maintained unchanged and stored separately from the forecast sales information.